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The speakers at the seminar include John Cohn of IBM, one of the foremost experts in blockchain technology.

Local leaders and other high-level representatives from China and Kazakhstan will also be attending.

The Minister of Transport and Communications, Anne Berner, will be representing the Finnish government at the event.

Kouvola City Mayor Marita Toikka will open the seminar.

SPEAKERS OF THE RAILFORUM 2017

ALMAT KARIMOV

Mr. Karimov studied transport logistics and graduated engineer in rail transport in 1999. Since that time he has worked in different jobs in the railway of Kazakhstan: from the station cooperator to chief engineer, then Head of Forwarding and Logistics Department in JSC Kedetransservice. Since July 2015 he heads the Department of container transportation in JSC KTZ Express.

Almat Karimov

ILKKA SEPPÄNEN
MBA, Vice President, VR-Group Ltd, VR Logistics.
Seppänen has a long history in expert and management positions in rail logistics. Seppänen has held a number of positions of trust with the most notable being board membership of the Finnish Association of Purchasing and Logistics (LOGY), membership of the chamber of commerce's transport committee and membership of the Confederation of Finnish Industries' (EK) logistics committee. He has also been active in developing Trans Siberian Railroad transports.

Ilkka Seppänen

JARI GRÖNLUND
Jari Grönlund, born in 1959 in Finland, is Chief Operations Officer of Unytrade Oy. Unytrade Oy is an official agent for KTZ Express (NC Kazakshstan Railways JSC) in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Before that Jari worked as Vice President of Kemira Global Logistics. Jari has been working 25 years in different freight forwarding companies. Before joining Kemira Oyj he established international freight forwarding division to Suomen Posti / Itella Oyj. During his career at international Freight Forwarding, Jari has worked three years in Moscow as Managing Director of A/O Huolintakeskus. Jari has also had strong input in developing Trans Siberian Railroad from Europe to Far East. Jari has worked as a teacher in Markkinointi Instituutti for International freight and logistics.

Jari Grönlund

MURAT NURTLEUOV
Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Republic of Finland since April 2016.
The 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Astana and Helsinki was celebrated in 2017. For a quarter of a century a stable architecture of bilateral interaction has formed between the two countries in the most key areas. The basis of the Kazakh-Finnish partnership is the principle of active promotion of political dialogue at the high and highest levels, steady development of trade and economic relations and mutual support of key initiatives on the international arena. In turn, the participation of Kazakhstan and Suomi in the Eastern Transport Corridor project has witnessed the strategic complementarity of the economies of the two countries, which also reflects the real capabilities of the two countries in strengthening transcontinental communication between Europe and Asia in the new millennium.

Murat Nurtleuov

PASI TOIVANEN
Administration Department
Finnish Customs
Senior Adviser for the Director General and other Directors of Finnish Customs related to Russia and Eastern Europe.
Coordination of the Finnish Russian Customs cooperation and Member of joint Training Working Group and joint Neighbouring area Working Group.

Pasi Toivanen

YANA KUZINA
MSc MRICS
Vice-chairman on development
Freight Village RU

The vice-chairman Yana Vladimirovna Kuzina is in charge of the development strategy and sales of the first Russian intermodal freight village. This unique village is located in Vorsino-industrial park.

Yana Kuzina has over 15 years of experience on commercial estate business, for example with industrial logistic projects. She has gained experience with companies such as JLL, CBRE and S.A. Ricci. Yana Kuzina has led the estate assessment and development projects for customers such as Pik, KRKO, Don-Stroi, Kvartstroi, Rosevridevelopment, Sponda, Itella, Lotte, Capital Partners and IFD Kapital among others.

Yana Kuzina graduated from the Financial University owned by the Russian Federation. In 2009, she graduated from the University of Reading with a master’s degree on real estate management. She has experience on international legal research regarding project assessment. Moreover, she has positive experience on land register and construction price contention in Russia.

Yana Kuzina

ZHASLAN KHAMZIN
Chief Executive Officer
KTZE-Khorgos Gateway LLP

Zhaslan Khamzin was born on November 25, 1982 in Astana. He graduated with distinction L.N. Gumilev Eurasian national university with a specialty in “International relations”. From 2005 till 2007 he studied in Kazakh economic university named after T. Ryskulov with a specialty in “Finances”. In 2010 he entered Kazakh university of railway transport, in 2012 graduated from it with a specialty in “Transport management in the rail sector”. Zhaslan Khamzin is well experienced in transport and logistics sphere because of his rich work background. From 2004 up to 2016 he worked in Kazakhstan Railways Group as a Chief Engineer, Head of cargo and commercial work, Director of sales and customer relations department of KTS Express JSC, Director of container transportation Department of KTZ Express JSC. Since October 2016 till present time he is Chief Executive Officer of KTZE-Khorgos Gateway LLP.

Zhaslan Khamzin

JOHN COHN
John Cohn is an IBM Fellow in the IBM Watson Internet of Things Division. His current focus is on physical infrastructure for IoT, open data, internet of things communications and real time data analytics. Before joining the IoT Division , John has been an innovator in the area of design automation for both analog and digital custom integrated circuits. John received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at MIT, and earned a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in recognition of his contributions to the design automation for high performance custom circuits. John has authored more than 30 technical papers and has contributed to four books on design automation. He has approximately 70 patents in the field of design automation, methodology, circuits and smarter systems.